Linda Lou Cushenbery was born to Robert John Failes Jr. and Esther Bernice Coulter Failes on September 2, 1941, in Cherokee, Oklahoma. She was a caring wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, sister and friend. She left this world after a brief illness on December 29, 2021, at the age of 80. She grew up five miles north of Cherokee on her family's farm. She was a member of the Driftwood First Baptist Church and attended her first three years of school at Driftwood Schools, then finished out her school years at Cherokee Public Schools, graduating in May 1962.

On Christmas Eve 1959 she mar...